The Birds and the Bees

 Alex has developed a new affinity for after-school naps as of late...to the casual onlooker, this may seem to correlate with the rain that has been falling (and falling and falling) in Portland for the past week. But as his mother, I suspect there is something bigger happening. When Alex finds something he is interested in, he latches on with an intensity that can bend steel. He'll mill and question, consider and obsess, until he's moved onto the next thing that fascinates or confounds him...and repeat. Well, my friends, this newest fascination is a doozy.... and that new fascination is S-E-X, compliments of his new sex ed. class in school. Now, I have fostered an environment of openness in our family that I'm very proud of, no topic too big or small to be discussed...but because there are no topics we won't discuss, Alex thinks....well.... that we should discuss. And although I've been painfully open with the finer points of sex with my older child, you'd think I'd be prepared for a grenade being lobbed at me unexpectedly as I make dinner. It looked a little something like this:

Alex:.....Mom, I have a question....

Me: OK, kiddo.What's up?

Alex: Well...it's about sex. You know, some people think sex is dirty and some think it has something to do with religion or something....do you think sex is dirty?

Me: *shock* *silence*...I can almost see the thought bubble with the word HUH.....?! over my head as I try to figure out how we've made an abrupt left turn from talking about video games to the morality of sex. I began to tap dance with my mouth because I was suddenly faced with a very important conversation and I'd met the moment bewildered while holding a sweet potato.  I rambled more hoping that he could pick out the important details....stuff about how sex is far from dirty. That it's a perfectly natural and special experience to be had by two consenting adults. You know...the stuff you're supposed to say. I wondered if I sounded as shrill I seemed to in my own ears. Apparently, he didn't notice because he proceeded to describe the finer points of coupling to me with wide-eyed wonderment.

And it's continued. He's innocently cornered Tim in the kitchen...Tim...? What is masturbation....? (I heard Tim doing his own version of the tap dance as Sydney and I quietly giggled from the bedroom.). He's managed to yell across a crowded parking lot to a neighbor who asked how he was doing, and was met with: Terrible! I'm learning about sex at school!...

He's taking this whole sex subject very seriously. So he's sleeping. Sleeping it off. Given the way this is shaping up, the whole family may have to follow his lead on this one.

Catch Up and Cave Dwelling

I can't believe it's been six weeks since I put words out into the blogosphere! There's a good reason for that actually.For the entire month of April, I came home from work so exhausted that all I was really good for was dropping onto the couch into what looked remarkably like a coma every single night. Plus, there was Sydney's intense dance schedule that lead up to her big production and Alex's soccer and lacrosse to add to the mix. I was so burnt out by the end of the month that if there had been a traveling circus that happened upon my staggering, bleary-eyed shell on the way to my car one morning, I would have done my best to convince them that I am a hell of a lion tamer and left everything else in the dust. (Apparently, children aren't the only ones that consider running away.)

May's been crazy too (I'm seeing an unfortunate pattern here) but at least it's been fun. My parents were in town which meant some adventuring was in order.

Besides a fun day at the zoo....

Alex and his cousin, Kendra

Alex and my dad (and me heckling in the background)

Kendra and Alex in spaaaaaaaaace!

...A surprise Mother's Day High Tea from my wonderful brothers.....

.....Sydney's big dance performance (in which she was one of the leads) and the celebrating of her 15th birthday.....

 ...We skipped over to Washington for a day to explore the Ape Caves. In our naivety, we collectively thought we were going for a long, leisurely walk in the dark of a cave for the day, the big surprise being that it turned out to be mostly scaling over boulders in the dark for miles (which was a fun surprise for me because I used to spelunk in my younger days). I have to say, no one was more surprised than my mother whose entire worldly 'boulder scaling' resume before that consisted of tripping over rocks in her driveway. She was a real trooper though; she seemed to consider having Search and Rescue come get her and carry her out only once that I could count. I can honestly say that I never in my wildest dreams expected to spelunk with my mother. I am relatively certain that hell hath frozen over. And here is the proof.

One mountain of boulders down....345 to go

Hitting The Wall

March is my least favorite month on the calendar. With freakish regularity, March rolls around, I hit some sort of invisible wall, and I feel like I could just lay there, face-first in the mud. Just go around, people. Go around, is what the caption over my head would read. Everything seems more daunting for me this time of year. Given our track record, I really should just consider skipping March altogether. The chemistry between us just isn't there.

What I need is a vacation. A long vacation. A vacation that includes a bikini, blue water, and a drink with an umbrella. I've been thinking a lot about one particular vacation we took to the Yucatan Peninsula a few years ago: a woman actually came to our hut to bathe me in honey on that trip. Honey. I think that if there has to be March on the calendar every single year, then it's only fair that I should have to spend the duration in a hut by the sea being dipped in honey. I have the sneaking suspicion that the closest I'm going to come is a trip to the grocery store and cleaning spilled honey off the counter.

April, you can't come fast enough.

Life With Gumby

I find living with a serious dancer a bit disconcerting at times. Our daughter moves with a grace and agility that can truly inspire and amaze me. She contends that in order for her to maintain her grace and agility she needs to be stretching constantly. So she stretches. Constantly. It's not uncommon to see her all twisted up like a pretzel on the floor while doing her homework, or witness her trying to get her foot up over her head as she's scrounging for food in the kitchen, or looking like she's doing a one-woman game of Twister while texting with her friends. It's all sort of impressive in its own weird way. It also makes my own body object and revolt on her behalf, a sort of full body gag; a motherly-reptilian alarm signalling that my child's body is contorted in a way that under normal circumstances would require a hospital visit. (Alright, fine. It may also be true that the alarm is warning me that if I get a wild hair and decide to throw my own 37-year old leg up onto the refrigerator, I'll get a swift and intimate knowledge of the term shock and awe....)
So I stand aside and admire. And cringe. And gag.

She auditioned for and was cast as one of the leading roles in Portland Metro Performing Arts' Coppelia this year which is an incredible honor. Beyond intense rehearsals six days a week, it can only mean that we'll be seeing Sydney hopping on one foot with the other over her head while trying to catch the bus for school. I'll be sure to document.

Tim Turns the Big 4-0

I could insert a dozen little jokes about Tim turning 40 as I write this post. Little jabs about being over the hill. That 40's not old if you're a tree. It's tempting, because it's what we do: tease each other to show affection. But I think that it might be best to refrain....Tim is 40 after all. I don't want to upset him and have him drop dead on me. I need to start considering his delicate condition.

 (Ok, now that I've got that out of my system....) I wanted the first days of Tim's 40th year to be memorable (in the best sense) and spent months plotting with his friends and family to have them secretly fly from their corners of the world and surprise him with a birthday celebration on the coast. It was the best kind of fun and The-Gods-of-Turning-40 certainly smiled upon us: A big, comfortable cabin with a group of wonderful people. Absurdly gorgeous weather and a long stretch of a quiet beach. An outdoor jacuzzi and clear, star-filled skies. Lots and lots of laughter. A very happy 40-year-old husband.

I'm going to go ahead and add some photos for him to remember how great this trip was. Because although I'd like to pretend that it isn't going to happen, my own 40th birthday will be here in three short years and I want him to be kind. (Did I mention how good 40 looks on my husband?!)

All Dogs Go to Heaven

It's with the heaviest of hearts that we say goodbye to the kindest of souls, and a member of our family, our old dog and faithful friend,Vegas. It was so hard to watch him waste away in his final weeks and terribly painful to make the ultimate decision to put him to sleep. The whole world seems strange without him.

Vegas was Tim's big, sweet, loyal dog for over 13 years and the kids' and mine for over 8. He loved his family, playing at the beach, and eating food scraps that I snuck to him after dinner. He was the friendly neighborhood greeter, the gracious foot warmer, and my noble constant shadow; there's nobody who could escort me around a coffee table the way that he could. He was patient: even if Tim wanted to dance with him, even if I grumbled about his bad breath, even if our spirited wiener dog wanted to roughhouse well after Vegas was too old for such nonsense. He was good-natured and devoted and beautiful to his dying breath.  We are grieving our big, lovable, doe-eyed dog; he was the best dog a family could ask for, and I'm glad he knew it.

As I write this, I notice the tumbles of fir hiding under the kitchen table that I once was obsessively quick to vacuum. Now, I'm just letting them sit a little longer, juuuuust a little bit longer, not quite ready to let it all go. I'm trying to remember that Vegas is running his big, dopey, figure-eights on a beach somewhere in the sky, and I know that once my heart's not so heavy, that thought will make me smile.

A New Year, A New Theme

A wise woman once shared with me that instead of making New Year's Resolutions every year, she chooses to create a personal Theme of the Year to follow. As someone who has always considered the New Year sacred ground, I was inspired by the idea. I had christened the year of 2012, The Year of Revelation and Revolution, which sounded as bold and courageous as I was sure I was going to need to be in 2012. The title felt so heroic; so Joan of Arc; so Harry Potter meets Vodemort.  Funny thing about life....it often rises up to meet you.

Looking back on 2012, there were plenty of monsters to slay and plenty of times that I found myself in the tall grass without much of a working compass. In those moments, I often found myself contemplating who I wanted to be in the world. Beyond the obvious (I want to be a present, loving mother. I want to grow as an artist. I want Ryan Gosling to fall madly in love with me......) I found other words creeping into my consciousness as I sat struggling with the Rubik's cube of life. Bold words. Words that made me stop in my tracks. I found myself facing situations saying things like, I choose to be courage. I choose to be integrity. I choose to be love. I choose to be grace. Somewhere along the way, it dawned on me that Life had it's own take on what Revelation and Revolution might mean and that Revelation and Revolution weren't necessarily going to be the huge external events that I had imagined (although there have been those too) but soul-level insights into how to approach everyday moments. I find some strange sense of power in that knowledge. As I came to embrace this understanding in the last weeks of 2012, I found something else entirely unexpected; a feeling of contentment that I've never know existed. I have always been restless and anxious by nature. Contentment is a country that I have rarely, if ever, visited. So far, I'd have to say that I think that contentment becomes me. And I think I've earned it.

Now we're into the opening act of 2013. I've decided that I need a theme a lot less heavy than last year's, mostly because dealing in Revelation and Revolution is kind of exhausting work, and who wants to rock the boat unnecessarily when you're so new to the whole contentment thing? I gave my theme some real thought, and decided to deem 2013 the Year of Creativity and Prosperity for myself. It seems both playful and healthy. Full of the possibility for wonder and miracles. (And if the Universe wants to throw some extra money my way, I won't object.)

So here's to the New Year! May it be one of prosperity and wonder for you as well.